Short Coat Podcast

Planning Now for MD Happiness

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Can You Plan Now for Happiness Later?

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Photo by ecastro

Once you’re on the path to doctorhood, it can be hard to step off.  You’ll probably be happy…but what if you find out you’d rather just skate?   Sure, you’re making money, you’re an important part of the medical profession, you’ve got this under control…but there’s something missing: happiness, satisfaction.  How can medical students prevent happiness from not happening?  How can anyone?  Eric Snieders, Brady Campbell, Erica Henderson, and Marissa Evers take the example of San Diego’s local hero Slomo (former neurologist John Kitchin) as well as the apparently happy lives of hunter gatherers and residents of Norway, (but perhaps NOT the residents of the US of A) and try to think about what will keep them happy as they wend their way through the medical industrial complex.

This Week in Medical News

Thinking about tattooing your eyeball?  No?  Hmm, weird.  Well, a Canadian model would like you to think again…especially if you’re planning on having your boyfriend do it.  You’ve been warned.

We Want to Hear From You

Are you eyeing a tattoo?  Got one you want to show us? We want to see it!  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

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Pets in Medical School

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Is having a pet while you’re in medical school a good idea?

Dave’s gotten a few requests over the years from folks who want to know: is it a good idea to have pets while you’re in medical school?  And Dave also has co-hosts who wanted to talk about their pets on The Short Coat Podcast.  Now, Dave isn’t a pet kinda guy, but luckily he went out of town and Kylie Miller was able to take over the mic.  Which means that finally, after all this time, some med student pet owners–Kaci McCleary, Vic Hatcher, Tim Maxwell, and Lisa Wehr–were able to get together with Kylie to talk about the challenges and rewards of having a fur baby while working through medical school.

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We Want to Hear From You

Are you worried about having a pet while studying medicine?  Or are you completely unconcerned? Tell us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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The Donors Who Get No Plaques Or Portraits

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Deeded Bodies: Medical Students’ First Patients

donor photoDonors are very important to universities and medical schools, typically contributing money to further the educational mission.  Often, donors get a plaque on the wall, and some even get whole buildings named after them.

But we’re also grateful for the donors who get no plaques and whose names aren’t widely known:  those who, after they pass away, donate their bodies to medical schools so that students can use them to learn. On the afternoon of the CCOM Deeded Body Ceremony, Patrick Brau, Mackenzie Walhof, Brady Campbell, and Reed Johnson reflect on the nature of this gift, what it has meant to them, and some of the unexpected things they learned.

This Week in Medical News

Scientists were surprised this week to find out that jellyfish sleep, perhaps just like we do…which is weird because you’d think that sort of thing would get them killed.  And in the spirit of the season (interview season, that is), we discuss evidence for why you probably shouldn’t have your med school or residency interview at 30,000 feet.

We Want to Hear From You

Would you donate your body to a medical school? Why? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

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Rejection Happens

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“When you’re following your inner voice, doors tend to eventually open for you, even if they mostly slam at first.”
― Kelly Cutrone

reject photoEuthalia (not her actual name, though it probably should be. Feel free to take that name, anonymous caller) called us at 347-SHORTCT to express her sadness that she didn’t get a secondary interview at Iowa.  Which sucks for Iowa because…well, we might not get to meet Euthalia.  Of course, she knows rejection is not the end of the road for her dream. Brett Hanson, Tony Mai, Patrick Brau, and Levi Endelman share some things she needs to do now to deal with it, and to prepare her for the next time she applies.

Euthalia might be feeling anxious, a good bet because just about everyone we know has anxiety up the wazoo.  Luckily, Dave heard about a study in which subjects were able to decrease their anxiety by talking to themselves in the third person.  This seemed like a good idea, so we gave it a try.  Warning: you might want to turn down the volume.  Or unsubscribe.

This Week in Medical News

The Endocrine Society has new guidelines for how young transgender kids can begin hormone therapy.  And, to the surprise of no nurses at all, nurses in some places have more dangerous jobs than prison guards and police officers.  Be kind to the nurses, doctors.

We Want to Hear From You

What are your rejection stories? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

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How Premeds Find Their Med Schools

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Finding the Med School You Want to Attend

husky photo
Hello, I’m not @$!@#$ing interested in your grades! Photo by JSF539

Among the biggest projects  premeds face: not just getting into medical school, but getting into one that meets their needs.  Do they want a school strong in service learning activities?  Will they be happy in a system that recognizes academics first and foremost?  Is the location more important than other factors?  These are only a few of the factors that go into the decision…and Dave’s co-hosts couldn’t care less about them.  There were only two things that once-premeds-now-M1s Kyle Leubka, Gabriel Conley, Joyce Wahba and Eric Schnieders were most interested in.

Listeners Ryan and Michelle called in to pitch show ideas.  Ryan wants a show about Technology, Business, and Policy (he’s a podcaster at the University of Pennsylvania medical school…check them out).  And Michelle wants to know whether her currently well-cared-for Husky will survive having a med student owner.  Watch for future episodes, guys!

We Want to Hear From You

What topics would you like to see us tackle?  Do you have any strongly held criteria you’re using to judge medical schools? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

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I Can Taste the Gravy™ ft. The Vagibonds Podcast

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Say Hi to The Vagibonds

Katee Verhoef and Elizabeth Shirazi enjoy sourpus science.

Katee Verhoef and Corbin Weaver, from the new show The Vagibonds Podcast are in the studio to talk about their work discussing feminism through the OB/GYN student lens, as well as how they never introduce their co-host who just happens to be familiar to the SCP audience.

Plus, we explore the taste of medications.  Right out of the research lab, they usually taste gross.  This is why pharmaceutical companies go to a lot of effort sweetening them up, otherwise you’d throw up instead of being soothed.  But Dave suspects that Big Pharma hasn’t fully considered the possibilities for how medicine should taste, so he devises one of his ‘experiments’ to test whether medicine should taste like ham and gravy baby food instead. Katee, Corbin, Elizabeth Shirazi and Hillary O’Brien help Dave test this medical marketing breakthrough (psst, GSK, call us!).  And listeners Evelyn and “Maynard” wrote in with feedback and questions for The Short Coats.  And Ryan Gray, MD of the Specialty Stories Podcast wrote in offering a clarification of our answer to Terel’s recent question.

This Week in Medical News

Perhaps a bigger breakthrough, however, is the news that the FDA is willing to consider evidence that MDMA (or ecstasy) could be a “Breakthrough Therapy” for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.  And what about the new genetically engineered T-cells designed to seek out and destroy childhood leukemia, which the FDA has actually approved?

We want to hear from you.

What experiments should Dave inflict on his co-hosts next?  Do you want to call us out on some bogus thing we said?  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

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Questions Abound.

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Don’t Panic, but It’s Interview Season!

job interview photo
Photo by David Blackwell.

Interview season begins soon, which means it’s time to worry about the weird questions you’ll be asked during med school interviews.  Kayla joined our new Facebook Group, The Short Coat Student Lounge, and asked what strange or difficult questions Lisa Wehr, Liza Mann, Irisa Mahaparn, and new co-host Mackenzie Walhof had been asked when it was their turn.  Kayla’s question, of course, inspires Dave to have them try to play a game of Questions, at which all the co-hosts fail miserably.

This Week in Medical News

The FDA announced that it’s seeking public comment on plans to reduce nicotine in cigarettes to sub-addictive levels.  Interesting idea…but we have questions.   Google is trying to give US mobile users who search for info about depression a link to a screening tool for the disease…but we have questions.  One thing we don’t question: our old friend Martin Shkreli’s securities fraud trial jury selection transcripts were released, and let’s just say the jury of his peers don’t give a rat’s butt about what he’s actually on trial for…they hate him for the drug thing.

We want to hear from you.

What questions do you have for us?  We’d love to hear your thoughts.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, visit our Facbook group, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Open on Applications about New-Found Sobriety?

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Should a Medical School Applicant Open Up About a Successful Journey to Sobriety?

sober photo
Photo by _BuBBy_

Our recent episode on mental illness in medical school generated some listener feedback.  K wrote to say thanks for the honest discussion (our pleasure!), and wondered how open she should be on her medical school application about her journey to sobriety and how it led her to find a love for community service.  Dave’s six (!) co-hosts this week–Kalyn Campbell, Kylie Miller, Levi Endelman, Irene Morcuende, Kaci McCleary, and Laura Quast–agree that it’s a tough question with two answers…the one we’d like to be able to give, and the perhaps more realistic one that acknowledges human nature.

Listener Erica called in wondering how students cope with the challenges of medical school and residency, especially in the context of a mental illness.  And Terel dropped us a line to ask the differences between a hospitalist and an internist.

This Week in Medical News

Groundbreaking research from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that alternative medicine is a crappy option for cancer patients‘ survival rates…except for prostate cancer.  And a Chinese startup publishes a study in which CRISPR knocks out pig PERVs.  That’s Porcine Endogenous Retroviruses, silly, and it means if you need an organ transplant one day, you might have to thank a pig for that heart.

We want to hear from you.

Are you ready for your future pig heart?  Who would win in an alpha-gal fight, Kylie or Kalyn? We’d love to hear your thoughts.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Future Summer Health Professionals, Revisited

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CCOM’s Summer Program for Future Health Professionals Was a Success.

cholera photo
Photo by Ryan Somma

While Dave was on vacation, Teneme Konne got together with some folks we talked to back in July, pre-health students in UI’s Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP), a program that offers minority students and others access to mentorship and insight into future health careers. Yasmine Rose, Kristine Pham, Gil Osuna-Leon and Martin Rosenfeld came back, along with program administrator Nicole Keating, and shared with us the progress they made, what they learned, and where they’re going to take their newfound confidence in their health career choices.  Also, are Iowans really the rudest drivers?  And Yasmine is passionate about her rant on the hypocrisy of  environmentalists that eat meat.

In Medical News…

Last year, the United Nations admitted–after five years of denials–that it did play a role in Haiti’s cholera outbreak following the 2010 earthquake there.  Epidemiologists believe that the outbreak originated in a UN peacekeeping camp with poor sanitation,  and probably from a UN soldier who’d brought the disease from Nepal.  The UN has a lot at stake here, and the gang looks at the situation and what they feel the UN has as its responsibilities and risks in dealing with an outbreak that has sickened 770,000 Haitians and killed 9,200.

We want to hear from you.

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Crushing It with Mental Illness During Med School

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[We’re re-releasing this episode because when it was first posted the file was screwed up.  Enjoy!]

Much like America, doctors are afraid of mental illness.

mental illness photo
Photo by darcyadelaide

Physicians are no better than the rest of us at dealing with mental illness, even as they work valiantly to get their patients to recognize and get treatment for their conditions. As society becomes more open about ‘mood disorders,’  it is still common for MDs to reject treatment for depression, substance abuse disorders, anxiety, and more…and physicians and medical students are literally killing themselves–America loses 300 to 400 doctors every year to suicide.  Our co-hosts this week, Zeynep Demir, Innie Kim, Jason Lewis, and Kaci McCleary all have experienced their own disorders, and have formed a CCOM chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.  Still in it’s infancy, they’ll be working to destigmatize mental illness among physicians, residents, and medical students in the hope that those who suffer can be saved and become what they always wanted to be: effective, compassionate, and healthy physicians.

We want to hear from you.

Do you suffer from a mental illness, and worry about your future as a physician? We’d love to hear your story, anonymously if that’s what you’d prefer.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Medical School Podcast: What They Don't Tell You | The Short Coat